


Grey Plastic, Silver Steel

by Ordinarily



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Reader-Insert, peter's just losing everyone huh, wow im sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 15:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18705013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ordinarily/pseuds/Ordinarily
Summary: **SPOILERS for Endgame.You find Peter after the funeral.





	Grey Plastic, Silver Steel

“Peter?”

Peter freezes in front of his apartment door, keys still jingling. 

He knows that voice and he’s scared—God, he is _so_ scared. 

There’s a good chance she’s five years older than him now. That would make her... twenty—twenty-one? 

His suit feels heavy, his tie too tight. He was one of the last people to leave the after... after party doesn’t sound right. The after service. 

Maybe Tony would have preferred party. 

His kid is real nice. Real cute. Peter knows Happy is going to do great but he can’t help wanting to be there too. Maybe Morgan could use a brother.

Peter’s nose stings. He turns around slowly with his heart in his feet. 

She doesn’t look much older. Maybe... 

She blinks, eyes watering.

He shakes his head at her, his own eyes filling with tears. 

She closes the distance between them, throwing her arms around him but all he can manage to mutter is, “He’s gone, Y/N. He’s gone. He’s gone. I’m sorry, he’s gone.”  

She’s known Peter for most of her life and she knows he repeats things out of despair and she’s used to him apologizing out of trauma, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.  

Last Y/N knew, her friend was in space and she was watching her parents disappear before the world stopped for her too. But then... they were back. Everything was back. Except it was 2024 and nothing was normal. 

She combs through his hair, holds him, squeezes him tight. They sob together in the hallway. 

People have been doing that a lot lately. Sobbing in hallways. 

It takes her a moment to figure out exactly who he’s talking about and then she feels even worse. How many people does Peter have to get ripped away from him?

How many funerals has he been to?

“I’m here,” she says because she hopes it’ll help. Someone is here for you, Peter Parker. 

He cries louder. 

That’s the thing about Pete. He doesn’t cry at wakes or funerals. She’s spent enough time in his aftermath to know this. He offers his condolences, shakes hands, remains poised and composed... And then he goes home. 

It’s May who finally swings open their front door, still dressed in her funeral attire, and ushers the two of them inside. Y/N leads her neighbour into his room and offers his aunt a polite nod and rueful smile as if asking if this is okay, to which May holds her keys up and nods at the front door as if to say she’s heading out for a bit.  

It’s for her own sake more than it is to give the kids privacy. Really, she’s not sure she can take hearing Peter sobbing like that. Not again. 

The door to his bedroom clicks shut softly but Peter doesn’t hear it. He’s already taken to destroying his room.  

It’s hard to watch. Y/N has half a mind to reach out and stop him: he would if she did.

His desk is overturned, books and trinkets litter the floor, it doesn’t take much Spidey strength to get his bed to come crashing down either. Picture frames shatter, he hauls his desk chair across the room. Everything goes up in a thick cloud of dust, having been left untouched for five years.  

Finally, it seems to be the old Spider Suit in his closet that sends Peter sinking to his knees. 

Y/N doesn’t think she could be the same after seeing someone hurt like this. Suddenly, she wonders if maybe he didn’t give her the full mourning version of himself during Ben.  

Of course, he wouldn’t. 

He wouldn’t let anyone see this and yet... 

She pads over and holds him for a long time. 

“Why’d it have to be him?” he mumbles numbly into her shoulder. She’s trying to think of something to say when he speaks again. He sounds so broken. “I watched him die. I stood there and watched and I thought he would be okay but really, I knew. I knew it and I still—"

She hears him swallow thickly and he pulls away again like he can’t take the heartbreak. 

“I watched.” 

Maybe Peter isn’t going to be the same after this either. “It’s not fair, Pete. It’s never fair.”

He’s silent for a while, save for intermittent sniffling. Then, finally: “I must be so selfish.”

He hasn’t been able to stop replaying it in his head. 

Pepper guiding him out of the way while he clenched his jaw so tightly he thought his teeth might crack. _We won, Mr. Stark. You did it, sir._ Letting Tony go so readily because that was what he needed. Because so long as Anthony Edward Stark was alive, so was the drive and guilt and unrest slowly killing him anyway. _Hey, Tony, look at me. We’re going to be okay._ Maybe Pepper knew or maybe she knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of him recovering; either way, Peter considers Mrs. Potts the most unselfish person he knows. _Y_ _ou can rest now._

That woman is broken now.

“For wanting him back?” Y/N responds. “Never. That’s never selfish.” 

He’s momentarily surprised at how effortlessly she understands his garbling. And then he nods in that way that grieving people do and goes back to crying. 

*** 

“Y/N?”

It’s the middle of the night when he wakes up. He's still in his good clothes.

“Yeah?" She sounds tired but she reacts quickly enough that he knows she wasn’t asleep. 

“Why are you still here?” They’re side by side on the floor.

“I can go if you want.”

“That’s not what I meant. Just—why did you stay?” His voice is hoarse. 

“...I wanted to. I meant it. I’m here. I’ll be here as long as you need.”

“I wish I hadn’t broken the bed.”

“We’ll fix it in the morning.”

Peter doesn’t say that he doesn’t think they can fix snapped wood. 

He turns over to face his desk. It takes a surprising amount of willpower to flip the lump that is his body. It’s heavy and weak and numb all over.

In the darkness, his eyes travel the floor and the length of his desk. The angle is weird and he gets lost in it, wondering if this is how actual spiders see the world, before remembering they have eight eyes. So… probably not.  

His gaze falls back to the floor when he spots something. Wedged between the corner of his desk and the small table next to it is a lumpy object he can’t seem to discern the nature of. He reaches out slowly, forcing his aching muscles to stretch and hesitates before touching it.  

It’s wedged in there pretty tight.

There's a scraping noise as he tugs on it, prompting a soft, “Peter?” from Y/N.

He doesn’t hear her.

He doesn’t hear anything because there’s a tiny screwdriver, the steel smooth and cold, locked in his fist...

and it doesn’t belong to him.

***


End file.
